B2B and social networks are the future for e-commerce

Kittikorn Kunnalekha Kittikorn Kunnalekha, managing director of AISoft Co, a Thai company specialising in internet applications for travel industry, talks with The Saigon Times Daily about an effective strategy for online business. He says: - Nowadays a single company cannot afford to run an online business by itself. The partnerships and the social networks can make it happen in a more affordable, profitable and, above all, faster way. Social networks are becoming popular not only among people but also businesses worldwide. How does it work? - As you may know, 80% of American people use social media. Its growth is estimated at 1,000%. You can also decide among many social networks like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn. You name them. But most important, they are all free. That’s the benefit any company must see. Any business should think about the way to make the most of the social networks, and about how to participate. What is the current model for online business? - I think the answer is the “Business2Business” system. And the social networks, the websites, are ways to get to it. Through the social networks any company can submit its expertise and look for partners who are interested in this expertise. We can use, as a business model, the travel  industry in which I’m an expert. For instance, a hotel wants to sell rooms, a car rental service want to give cars for rent and so on. They need to distribute and sell the product. In this case, the travel agency can do the job. How did they do it in the past? They needed an office and to hire people to work in that office. They needed physical space. Now it’s different, with just a website they can sell all over the world. Is the e-commerce really profitable? - I give an example to explain better. It’s a real case that happened to me in the past. I was sitting in an airline meeting and we were talking about their website, particularly about next year’s target. The website of this airline company has been growing, continuously, at a 20% rate for three years. At first sight, it is pretty good news, isn’t it? Actually, it is not. Because the whole market of e-commerce was growing at 40%. So why did the website grow “just” 20%? During that meeting, they decided they should grow 40% as well, but it was not easy for that airline company. So, for instance, how can a Vietnamese company start up an online business? - In Vietnam a lot of people are using the internet although e-commerce is not so widespread yet. Some businesses may also have a website to attract more people, some businessmen may want to start brand-new e-commerce projects. But before using the social networks, they should focus on building a very efficient website. There is no use to have a link on Facebook or Twitter if the company’s website is not well structured. First of all, they need transparent data. They must meet customers’ expectations. They should provide all the useful information about the product, so the costumers can make a decision about buying it or not. For instance, a hotel owner should put on the website all the information concerning the building, the rooms, the facilities, the services, the prices and also the extras, because the customer may be more interested in the extras the hotel gives rather than the general service he can find in other lodges. That’s an example of data transparency, which is the main aspect of any e-commerce websites. Then we have the peer collaboration: it means that the information on the website doesn’t’ come from the company itself. It comes from your customers. Back to the example of the hotel owner, in that case the guests who have been there may have left some comments on the hotel. This information is really precious; the owner should use it for his business benefit. The feedback from the customers is the best way to improve the company’s performance. The third element any e-commerce businessman should have in mind is: basic is better. There is no need to have a fancy and fashionable website if there is not the information the customer wants. I would recommend that: be easy, tell the customer what is your product and why he/she should buy it. Go straight to the point. Too many frills can generate just confusion. Just give the right information. And be smart. Any particular tips? - The website should let the customer move through the pages in a very easy and attractive way: by giving the information he wants, the site can also provide other information such as your promotions. An airline website, for instance, can give the customer all the details about a certain flight and, besides that, on the same page, it can also put in evidence, by pop-ups windows or banners, other promotions he can be interested in. The website should be smart enough to make the customer buy more than what he wants at the beginning of his search. If a company can build such a website, smart, complete, appealing and functional, then they are ready to attract people from social networks. It takes a lot of time and money to build a website on your own. Is there a more affordable way to do it? - The answer is “Business2business”. It means you can use your competitor to sell the product. It may sound funny, but actually it works perfectly. As you mentioned, to create a website, a company should do anything, from marketing to selling and developing the technology, all by itself. And it takes a long time and money. Let’s give an example: Let’s suppose there is a travel agency in Vietnam that would like to try the e-commerce for Vietnamese flight bookings. They know this market is growing very fast. Just to give the idea, in the UK or France 30% of travel bookings are made online and this rate is going to increase quickly. So these guys in Vietnam want to jump in the e-commerce, but they need an IT company that can help them build the website and create the content. They want to be at the same level of the competitors that are in Thailand or Singapore. They want to manage and close the bookings online and provide customers with instant access to thousands of possible fares. On the other site, this Vietnamese IT company is used to work on website development but knows nothing about airline bookings systems. They know that to get that kind of knowledge can cost thousands of dollars and take at least one year to develop such a website. So, what is the solution? - Here comes the B2B model: one company can extend its market by using the other company’s professionals. For example, recently a very famous company, specialising in iPhone applications in Thailand, asked me to help them do a new application that allows iPhone users to book flights online. We made it in two months. We put together their technical knowledge on iPhone applications plus our expertise in airlines booking systems and we made a new product. Reported by Ngoc Tran